University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

From  the  Library  of 
Helen  and  Alexander  Meikle  john 


,V 


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Mr.  WILLIAM 

5HAKESPEARES 

COMEDIES, 
HISTORIES,   & 
TRAGEDIES. 


J  UNI^E  FIRST  FOLIO 

BT  H.  C.  FOLGER,  JR. 

WITH  PHOTOGRAPHS  BY  GEORGE  DUPONT  PRATT 


ON  Wednesday,  August  11,  1596, 
Hamnet,  only  son  of  William 
Shakespeare,  was  buried  at  Strat- 
ford. The  little  lad's  father,  hurrying 
from  London,  was  the  saddest  mourner 
at  the  funeral.  For  the  wise  Shake- 
speare, though  he  wrote  for  us  all  a  book 
of  life,  showed  signal  indifference  about 
himself.  He  found  his  father  harassed 
by  creditors,  and  his  wife  a  borrower 
to  meet  her  needs.  Indeed,  one  sum 
remained  unpaid  five  years  later,  the 
lender  telling  his  executors  to  collect 
from  Shakespeare  and  give  it  to  the 
poor. 

Thus  death  rudely  checked  the  bard's 
supreme  ambition — to  found  a  line  of 
gentlefolk.  While  he  could  "  by  his 
right  happy  and  copious  industry,"  as 
the  dramatist  Webster  puts  it,  pay  the 
family  debts,  buy  a  property,  and  make 
for  himself  a  reputation,  only  the  boy 
Hamnet  could  pass  the  name  of  Shake- 
speare down  to  posterity — and  Hamnet 
was  gone.  E'or  William  Shakespeare 
had  already  approached  the  Heralds 
about  a  coat  of  arms,  applying  in  his 
father's  name,  as  was  the  practice ;  and 
a  rough  draft  by  Dethick,  Garter  King, 
dated  October  20  of  this  sad  year,  1596, 
can  still  be  seen  at  the  College.  Curi- 
ously enough,  it  is  in  the  hand  of  Vin- 
cent, who  appears  later  in  our  narrative. 


How  its  sonorous  phrases  must   have 
delighted  the  poet's  ear ! 

As  many  gentelmen  by  theyre  auncyent 
names  of  families,  kyndrede,  and  descentes, 
have  and  enjoye  certeyne  enseignes  and 
cotes  of  arms,  So  it  is  verie  expedient  in  all 
ages  that  some  men  for  their  valeant  factes, 
magnanimitie,  vertu,  dignitie,  and  desertes, 
may  use  and  beare  such  tokens  of  honour 
and  worthinesse  whereby  theyre  name  and 
good  fame  may  be  the  better  knowen  and 
divulged,  and  theyre  children  and  posteritie 
in  all  virtu  (to  the  service  of  theyre  Prynce 
and  Contrie)  encouraged. 

Perhaps  comments  on  the  financial 
instability  of  the  father,  John  Shake- 
speare, perhaps  objections  to  the  son's 
calling — hardly  respected,  however  re- 
munerative— checked  the  College ;  but 
most  probably  the  death  of  his  heir  left 
the  poet,  clearly  the  mover  in  the  suit, 
less  eager  for  the  honor.  The  grant  of 
arms  was  not  confirmed. 

Three  years  later  the  application 
takes  a  new  form.  Shakespeare  is  fast 
becoming  a  man  of  means,  with  many 
•friends,  one  of  whom,  the  Earl  of  Essex, 
is  chief  of  the  Heralds'  College,  and 
another,  the  scholarly  Camden,  Claren- 
ceux.  It  is  easy  now  to  get  his  grant, 
but  our  poet  is  more  ambitious,  and  begs 
permission  to  quarter  the  Arden  arms 
with  those  of  Shakespeare.  Again  the 
College  hesitates,  suggesting  the  device 
of  Ardens  more  distant  and  less  known 

687 


688 


THE    OUTLOOK 


than  those  of  Warwickshire.  Happily, 
the  poet  relieved  their  embarrassment 
by  accepting  the  Shakespeare  arms  alone. 

Gould,  on  a  bend  sables  a  speare  of  the 
first,  steeled  argent;  and  for  his  crest  or 
cognizance  a  falcon,  his  winges  displayed 
argent,  standing  on  a  wrethe  of  his  coullers, 
supporting  a  speare  gould,  steeled  as  afore- 
said, sett  upon  a  helmett  with  mantelles  and 
tasselles  as  hath  been  accustomed. 

Above  runs  the  motto,  "  Non  sanz 
droict,"  which  all  the  world  most  will- 
ingly now  grants.  This  is  the  beginning 
of  our  curious  history. 

The  "  Exemplification  of  Arms  "  to 
Shakespeare  in  1599  was  executed  by 
"William  Dethick,  Garter  Principall 
King  at  Arms  of  England,  and  William 
Camden,  alias  Clarentieulx."  Two  men 
could  not  be  more  unlike.  Dethick  was 
arrogant,  grasping,  unscrupulous  ;  Cam- 
den, surnamed  "  the  learned  "  by  Stow, 
a  man  of  talent  and  scholarship.  But 
Camden,  two  years  before,  had  been  ad- 
vanced by  Queen  Bess  to  second  place 
in  the  College,  a  step  keenly  resented 
by  his  colleagues.  They  clung  to  the 
old  regime,  by  which  the  offices  were 
given  in  succession  to  Heralds  and 
Pursuivants  as  of  right.  So  Camden  was 
charged  with  lack  of  experience — which 
could  not  be  denied — and  with  igno- 
rance, though  it  was  his  knowledge  and 
industry  that  were  feared. 

Most  bitter  were  the  attacks  of  the 
York  Herald,  Raphe  Brooke,  the  black 
sheep  of  the  College  of  Heraldry,  who 
had  vehemently  demanded  for  himself 
the  office  given  to  Camden  unsolicited. 
There  is  a  touch  of  humor  in  our  finding 
Brooke  a  member  of  the  College  at  all. 
That  body  was  established  solely  to  pre- 
serve family  succession  and  to  reward 
the  services  of  faithful  subjects  by  hon- 
oring their  descendants.  Brooke,  a  man 
without  a  past,  had  forced  his  way  into 
the  sacred  precincts.  His  very  name 
and  lineage  were  assumed.  He  was  born 
Raffe  Brokesmouth,  but  changed  his 
name  to  Raphe  Brooke,  and  fabricated 
a  line  back  to  the  days  of  Richard  IH. 
By  trade  a  "  painter-stainer,"  his  ready 
hand  at  tricking  coats  of  arms  made  him 
a  welcome  among  the  Heralds,  who  were 
none  too  clever  or  industrious.  One 
might  think  the  vigorous  language  of  the 
time  accounted  for  the  keen  criticisms 


by  his  associates,  did  we  not  read  in 
contemporaneous  history  that  he  broke 
open  the  office  and  stole  the  books  and 
muniments  of  the  College,  and  that  he 
was  later  found  guilty  of  other  felonies, 
and  branded  in  the  hand  at  Newgate. 
Those  were  rugged  times  of  .refined  bar- 
barity. In  order  to  disgrace  a  colleague 
and  superior,  Segar  the  Garter  King,  he 
arranged,  by  a  hired  emissary,  for  the 
confirmation  of  arms  to  one  going  hur- 
riedly, it  was  said,  to  Spain.  Brooke, 
with  the  boldest  effrontery,  used  the 
royal  device  of  Arragon ;  and  Segar, 
falling  into  the  trap,  made  the  grant  for 
only  twenty -two  shillings,  the  real  appli- 
cant being  Brandon,  the  public  execu- 
tioner. Brooke  himself  carried  the  tale 
to  the  King,  quite  oblivious  to  his  own 
ignominy  in  his  eagerness  to  involve 
another. 

But  our  concern  is  with  his  assaults 
on  Camden.  He  objected  to  the  heraldic 
shield  given  to  the  Shakespeares,  claim- 
ing that  it  encroached  on  that  borne  by 
the  family  of  Manley.  This  the  shrewd 
Dethick  and  the  scholarly  Camden  readily 
answered,  showing  at  least  two  other 
coats  of  similar  design  and  differentiating 
the  four  from  one  another.  But  Brooke 
was  not  to  be  silenced.  Knowing  neither 
Latin  nor  French,  and  ignorant  of  all 
history,  his  instinct  of  self-preservation 
led  him  to  attack  the  learned  Camden, 
whose  "  Britannia,"  a  book  held  in  highest 
esteem,  had  been  enriched,  in  its  issue 
of  1 594,  with  many  genealogies.  Brooke 
claimed  that  this  curtailed  the  emolu- 
ments of  the  Heralds'  office,  and  assailed 
Camden,  in  1596,  with  "  A  Discoverie  of 
Certain  Errours  published  in  print  in 
the  much  commended  Britannia,  1594. 
Very  preiudiciall  to  the  descentes  and 
successions  of  the  auncient  Nobilitie  of 
this  Realme.  By  Yorke  Herault."  And 
then,  in  1619,  he  brings  out  a  pretentious, 
rather  than  accurate.  Peerage  of  his  own, 
with  a  title  as  ambitious  as  it  is  ample  : 

A  Catalogue  and  Succession  of  the  Kings, 
Princes,  Dukes,  Marquesses,  Earles,  and 
Viscounts  of  this  Realme  of  England,  since 
the  Norman  Conquest,  to  this  present  yeare, 
1619.  Together,  with  their  Armes,  Wives, 
and  Children  :  the  times  of  their  deaths  and 
burials,  with  many  their  memorable  Actions. 
Collected  by  Raphe  Brooke  Esquire,  Yorke 
Herauld  :  Discovering  and  Reforming  many 


tule-i-agl  or   iiui  vi.nxent  first  folio 


690 


THE    OUTLOOK 


23  November 


Errours  committed,  by  men  of  other  Pro- 
fessions, and  lately  published  in  Print ;  to 
the  great  wronging  of  the  Nobility,  and 
preiudice  of  his  Maiesties  officers  of  Armes, 
who  are  onely  appointed  and  sworne  to 
deale  faithfidly  in  these  causes. 

The  publisher  was  William  Jaggard, 
afterwards  made  famous  as  printer  of 
the  Shakespeare  First  Folio.  Camden's 
friends  had  little  difficulty  in  turning  the 
tables  on  the  intemperate  critic,  Camden 
himself  being  too  gentle  to  be  party  to 
any  controversy — so  gentle,  indeed,  that 
he  declined  knighthood,  unwilling  to 
wear  spurs  and  carry  a  sword.  Most 
active  among  his  supporters  was  the 
Windsor  Herald,  Augustine  Vincent,  who 
of  right  came  to  the  defense,  as  Camden 
long  before  had  befriended  him  when 
but  a  Pursuivant.  One  of  the  criticisms 
of  the  older  man  was  that  he  had  em- 
ployed as  deputies  inferior  officers  to 
make  visitations  in  his  stead,  the  young 
Vincent  having  been  so  honored,  besides 
being  favored  often  in  other  ways  by  the 
kindly  Clarencieux.  Brooke  was  driven 
by  these  disclosures  to  issue,  in  1622,  a 
second  edition  of  his  "  A  Catalogue  and 
Succession,"  although,  as  Jaggard  de- 
clared, "  there  lay  yet  of  the  former  im- 
pression, almost  two  hundred  of  five, 
rotting  by  the  walles."  In  this  issue  he 
charges  the  errors,  now  corrected,  upon 
his  "  rascally  printer,"  Jaggard,  by  whom 
"  divers  faults  and  many  mistakings  were 
committed." 

In  the  meantime  Vincent,  now  Herald 
of  Windsor,  had  prepared  an  elaborate 
defense  of  his  former  patron  and  con- 
stant friend.  As  Brooke  had  called  his 
attack  "  A  Discoverie  of  Errours  in  the 
Britannia  1594,"  Vincent  entitled  his 
rejoinder  "  A  Discoverie  of  Errours  in 
the  Catalogue  of  Nobility,  Published  by 
Raphe  Brooke,  Yorke  Herald,  1619." 
He  found  an  eager  printer  in  Jaggard, 
glad  of  the  opportunity  to  add  some  five 
pages  of  the  choicest  Billingsgate  in  his 
own  defense.  We  do  not  often,  even  in 
the  frank  days  of  King  James,  find  in 
print  so  intemperate  phrases  as  "  falsifi- 
cations, suborning  of  incestuous  matches, 
bastard  issues,  and  changing  children  in 
the  cradle,  and  such  scumms  of  his 
ranke  eloquence." 

Your    owne    intollerable    arrogance    and 
pride  of  conceite,  your  vilifying  and  con- 


tempt of  others,  as  if  you  had  stoode  on  the 
toppe  of  Powles,  and  saw  all  men  under  you 
no  bigger  \>:i2iV\.Jacke-da'wes;  your  familiar 
vaine  of  detracting  from  the  best  and  Worthi- . 
est  men  ;  your  tongue  gliding  over  no  man's 
name,  but  that  it  left  a  slime  behind  it 

Brooke  was  at  last  silenced.  The  justi- 
fication of  Camden  was  complete,  includ- 
ing the  granting  of  Shakespeare's  arms  ; 
and  the  aspersions  on  Jaggard's  skill 
as  a  printer  were,  to  his  keen  delight, 
refuted.  This  was  in  1622.  In  1623 
Jaggard  and  his  associates  finished  their 
ambitious  task  and  issued  the  Shake- 
speare First  Folio — "  the  greatest  of  all 
events  in  English  literary  history."  In 
the  flush  of  triumph  over  a  common  foe, 
Jaggard  the  printer  presented  to  Herald 
Vincent,  the  vindicator  of  his  reputation 
as  a  typographus,  an  early  copy — per- 
haps the  first — of  his  new  work,  binding 
it  in  rich  full  calf,  and  stamping  on  its 
cover  the  Herald's  arms — "  a  bear,  hold- 
ing in  his  left  paw  a  banner,  and  in  his 
right  a  squire's  helmet,  surmounted  with 
acrestofabear'shead,  standing  on  a  scroll 
with  the  motto  *  Vincenti  Augusta  '  "— 
(Laurels  for  a  conqueror).  Doubtless 
Jaggard  would  have  penned  a  stirring 
presentation  inscription,  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  times,  had  he  not,  through 
blindness,  lost  the  power  of  writing. 
But  Vincent  supplied  the  lack  by  him- 
self proudly  inscribing  in  a  bold  hand  at 
the  top  of  the  title-page,  "  Ex  dono  Willi 
Jaggard,  Typographi  a°  1623."  Friend- 
ships, like  enmities,  were  strong  in  those 
days. 

Thus  came  into  existence  the  subject 
of  our  sketch.  It  is  quite  incidental  that 
the  book,  as  the  librarians  of  the  British 
Museum  state,  is  "absolutely  uncut," 
being  the  largest  of  known  copies  and 
unique  in  that  respect;  or  that,  as  the 
same  authority  puts  it,  "  the  Portrait  on 
the  title-page  is  a  very  brilliant  impres- 
sion, pointing  to  its  being  one  of  the 
earliest  struck  off."  These  facts,  not  to 
mention  the  further  one  that  it  still 
remains  in  the  original  binding,  would 
distinguish  it  from  all  its  fellows — a  nota- 
ble company — and  put  it  in  a  class  by 
itself.  Important  as  they  are,  these 
extraordinary  marks  become  trifling  in 
the  presence  of  this  history  of  the  book's 
genesis,  with  the  stamp  of  its  identity 
made    by    the    friends    whose    mutual 


triumph  it  records.  Nor  is  it  of  moment 
to  trace  its  :wabnderiiigs  since  the  master 
printer  handed  it  to  the  worthy  Herald, 
even  if  such  history  could  be  told.  This 
much  is  known. 

The  book  was  discovered  by  a  mem- 
ber of  the  London  firm  of  Henry  So- 
theran  &  Co.,  Booksellers  to  the  King. 
Mr.  Railton  had  been  sent,  in  the 
spring  of  1891,  to  Sudbrooke  Holme, 
in  Lincoln,"  to  weed  out  the  worthless 
items  and  prepare  a  catalogue  of  the 
others  in  the  library  of  Coningsby  C. 
Sibthorp,  of  Carwick  Hall.  To  use  his 
own  words,  *'  Having  finished  work  in  the 
library,  I  was  taken  to  the  coach-house, 
in  which  was  a  large  case  of  books.  On 
the  top  of  the  case,  outside,  were  stacked 
a  great  number  of  folios,  covered  with 
dust.  These  were  passed  to  me  by  an 
assistant  who  lived  on  the  estate.  On 
throwing  down  a  volume  which  was  tied 
tightly  around  with  cord,  he  remarked. 
That  is  no  good,  sir,  it  is  only  old 
poetry.'  I  unloosened  the  string,  opened 
the  book,  and,  at  a  glance,  saw  what  a 
treasure  was  found  I" 


Mr.  Railton  noted  only  that  it  was  an 
uncut  copy  of  the  Fir^t  Folio,  and  in  the 
original  binding.  It  was  left  for  the 
Shakespearean  scholar,  Sidney  Lee,  and 
the  Librarians  of  the  British  Museum, 
eight  years  later,  to  discover  the  ^nore 
important  features.  Dr.  Lee  was  quick 
to  notice  the  presentation  inscription  on 
the  title-page.  The  Principal  Librarian, 
Sir  Edward  Maunde  Thompson,  and  his 
assistants,  Mr.  Warner,  of  the  Manuscript 
Department,  and  Mr.  Pollard,  of  the 
Printed  Books,  identified  the  device 
stamped  on  the  cover  as  the  arms  of  the 
Herald  Vincent,  and  the  note  on  the  title- 
page  as  in  Vincent's  autograph.  We  are 
carried  at  once  back  nearly  three  hun- 
dred years  to  the  splendors  and  struggles 
of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  when 
poets  sang  a  glorious  note,  full-throated, 
when  felonies  were  punished  by  brand- 
ing the  hand  that  stole,  and  ears  were 
shorn  to  discourage  eavesdropping  where 
royalty  conferred. 

Such  is  the  curious  history  of  the  Vin- 
cent First  Folio — the  most  precious  book 
in  the  world. 


BSSS 


